Thursday, October 21, 2010

I am an early voter by mail: it's that time of the year!

I just put my ballot in the mail. Those who go to the polls have a few more days to go, but I did not want my vote to be late.I caught up with the progress of 40 Days for Life with the avowed purpose of saving one baby at a time with prayer vigils at abortion clinics, which is now in its 30th day in cities around the world, and then once again, I cast my vote for governor in Arizona for a pro life candidate. Republican Janet Brewer went ahead and very firmly supported restrictions to abortion in Arizona I thought were long over due, especially the one requiring underage teens to notify their parents they were going for an abortion, bringing consent with notarized signatures. This was brought to the desk of Democratic Janet Napolitano who vetoed all restrictions on legalized abortions the legislature would with great effort put through. Still a pro life democrat for many good reasons, I could not with a good conscience vote for a pro choice democratic candidate, Terry Goddard, for governor. Legalized abortion causes far too many deaths, over a million a year in this country alone. It is a disgrace. It is a policy that people feel helpless to do anything about since it came about through a Supreme Court ruling in an unprecedented decision which elicited more protests from the shocked public than any other decision in history. We have to continue to find a way to reverse this decision but in the meantime trying to save babies whose lives will continue to be threatened by abortion as long as it is legal. Shawn Carney has reported that so far due to these prayer vigils at clinics an estimated 3,000 babies have been saved, which does not sound like many, considering how many others were lost. But the goal is to save as many as possible. People have posted many touching photos taken during the prayer vigils, an extremely tough way to protest, at abortion clinics, but even school children have been taken there to send up their earnest prayers, which might seem shocking to some, but I think that children can relate to babies lives being taken before they are born. There is always an effort to conceal the hard facts by those who when it comes down to it fight and vote to retain these policies. I put the issue of legalized abortion at the top of my list as needing attention and the will to do something about it. If loss of life means anything to you, it deserves no less. When life is deemed less than sacred eventually we will all feel the effects. We do now with a feeling of more uncertainty and loss of a sense of valuing our own lives. When teens commit suicide, don't think that legalized abortion has nothing to do with it. Any time the life of a child is devalued, children feel it and act accordingly in a society that has become too hardened to care. To value the life of the unborn child is to value the lives of all children. That is the message we send to them when we fight for their right to live. Taking the life of the unborn which requires the shedding of blood will frighten any child as it well should. There is no way to explain away an act that requires the killing of the fetus to accomplish, a child that has no other option but to grow from the embryo. Children can add whether adults do or not. And many can conclude that with legalized abortion they are no longer as safe as they once were. Adults have decreed there be blood sacrifices of children for the rest to survive better. That is a savage policy but one which some ferociously support. Think again, I say. Think of all the ramifications of such a policy. I have always said that it is better for us all to go down together than to sacrifice those the mother is formed by nature to protect, the child in her womb, now one of the most dangerous passages a child must go through, the womb, with the threat of death when a mother gets discouraged and can find someone who will help her expel the child, thinking a burden will be gone. Rather another one will take its place, the memory. We cannot always forget what we have done that easily.